Thinking Black

The foundation documents of Aboriginal activism

This is more anthology than book - and that is its strength. A solid introduction sets us up for surprise. That the first indigenous petitions, demands, orations and demonstrations came well before the radicals of the Tent Embassy and even before Communist agitators of the 1950s. It started way back in the 1870s at Maloga, and later Cumeroogunga on the Murray River.

Here, a clear-eyed Yorta Yorta boy, named William Cooper, met a businessman from Cornwall, who was turning his family property int a Christian Mission. Young William learnt the alphabet in two days and, over the months, a library of Bible stories. But perhaps none was more influential than the story of the Exodus. The grand narrative of a downtrodden people being promised their land back infused the thinking of Aboriginal activists for generations. But perhaps most strikingly, like Moses before Pharaoh, his sense of calling gave William Cooper the impetus to speak truth to power.

When the words came, they came in a torrent. Attwood and Markus have bottled but a few of them: letters to Bob Menzies, to Joseph Lyons and to other Christian leaders like Ernest Gribble. Cooper was magnetic. So we see the bold statements of Shadrach Livingstone James and the other warriors of the Australian Aboringines' League.

Not one of William Cooper's demands were met in his lifetime. Dying in March, 1941, he, still like Moses, never entered the Promised Land. But, along with his mentors, his courage and clarity of mind created the movement that has reached across the continent from Moira Forest to The Mabo claim.